Owie

I arrived at station yesterday, watched the news, drank some coffee, and started to check out my truck. Tones dropped 17 minutes into my shift though, so the truck check was put on hold. (We inventory every item every day, but after doing it for years and years, you have a pretty good idea of what is likely to be missing- mainly IV supplies and oxygen masks. You learn where everything goes, and it becomes easy to spot a missing item right away.) We went to the address and found a cozy home in a quiet, older neighborhood. Inside, we found a 60-ish year old lady curled up on the couch, holding her stomach and moaning in obvious discomfort. She says her belly has been hurting all morning, she has a history of chronic constipation and had a bowel infection a few months ago. She says the pain feels the same. Her husband is concerned, and explains that they tried to get in the car but she almost passes out when she stands up. We gently load her up, and take her to the emergency room. Her blood pressure is pretty darn low, so we run some warm fluids into her IV and help her feel just a tad better.

By the time we left the hospital it was after 9 a.m. and we were supposed to be at training. We cleared the ER and grabbed some quick breakfast. Training would run well into lunch time and nobody wanted to hear grumbling growling stomachs, or deal with my partner when he gets hungry! Training was great fun. (yes- that is sarcastic). We had 4 hours on "what is water and where does it come from?" and discussed everything from municipal water grids to the algebraic calculations to figure out how many BTU's it takes to heat X number of gallons at X temperature by X degrees. For some reason it made me want to cook a lobster. With butter and garlic and a little lemon wedge. I mean, you can't calculate heating water without having something to put in all that hot water, and lobster beats Ramen Noodles any day!

We went back to our station and ran more calls. A toddler had fallen down when her over sized puppy jumped on her. She hit her head and had a decent goose egg of the front of it. Mom was a bit surprised when I asked for her car seat for the ambulance, but the adult straps wont hold a 20 month old onto the stretcher, she won't sit still in it, her familiar seat is a better choice for her, and mom would need it when they are ready to go home. We secured the car seat to the stretcher and away we went. The toddler pointed out cars and trucks on the way there, and was doing just fine when we left.

One of our guys went to the local landscaping store to get mulch for station. They have mountains of it. Yes- mountains. When mulch decomposes, it gives off heat, and can spontaneously combust. They use bulldozers and front loaders to turn the mountains of mulch regularly, but it still burns fairly often, and when people see the smoke, they call the fire department. In exchange for us going out there alllllllll the time, they give us free mulch for the station. Thanks guys! We spread the mulch all around the plants and made our station look fantabulous. Then we ran an old lady with back pain.

That evening we were called to a suicide attempt. A 58 year old guy had gotten laid off and was having a hard time dealing with it. His wife thought he was taking a nap until she found the insurance papers and suicide note. He had taken about 20 or so sleeping pills, and she woke him up with some cold water. He was pretty out of it though, so we took him to the hospital. Hopefully he gets some help. While we were on that call, one of the Sheriff's officers' radio crackled, and dispatch said something about signal 67 or some super secret cop code. The officer perked up to listen, and I asked what that code meant. He said "person down". As it turns out, while we were on the overdose, the guys from my station that were on the engine were called to a 6 month old baby. Dead. They said that mom went to check on the baby from a nap and found him dead in the crib. We usually try to "work" anyone that might have a chance, but there are certain signs that we look for that tell us it is too far gone, and without getting graphic, this baby had them. There is no sense in giving parents false hope and a huge bill for what you know you can't fix. Glad I missed that call.

During the course of the day, I had been feeling silly, and began playing the old kid game of "punch bug". Not sure if you guys have this, but for my readers *across the pond* if you spot a Volkswagen beetle, you call "punch bug (whatever color)" and punch your partner. Convertible ones are worth two hits. My partner started out just giving a gentle nudge- after all he didn't want to hurt "the girl". As the day wore on, the punch bug spotting became more intense, and he spotted every convertible one on the road. Since we took turns driving, both of my arms were getting wailed on. I did spot quite a few myself, but he found a special way of poking one knuckle out when he slugged me so that it somehow went between the muscle and hit a nerve on the bone, making my thumb go numb each time. By the end of the day, my arms were turning blue. I held my own fairly well, and never cried uncle, but this morning, this is what my arms looked like, Owie: